Rex Murphy on “white privilege”.
The phrase has not surprisingly spawned a slogan — after all, what academic discipline doesn’t aspire to the abrupt short-thought of a bumper sticker? — Check Your Privilege. Which translates into a hectoring from social justice warriors, as they so deliriously style themselves, for white people to stand back and tabulate with tearful guilt the infinite advantages that result from their epidermal good luck.
Oh yeah baby….REX….HE DA MAN!!!! Tell it like it is brainiac!
Calls out ‘social justice warrior’s’ at ..Rex really is not part of that media bubble.
Ignore that typo..’at’
what martin luther king said!
well. I knew the truth would come out eventually.
Im guilty of being privileged. started oh, some 6 decades ago in my crib on those cold nights in my ‘rents uninsulated wood frame house heated only by the wood burning kitchen stove. (gawd ferbid we get on the topic of the CO2 spewing out of that antique).
so, there is little newborn lewis, seeing his breath, bundled in the blankets, concluding I must be part living in the arctic. so, the metabolism gets HARD WIRED to deal with the cold with the bonus that in my 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond, I can make a pig of myself (pun intended) at the all-you-can-eat etc because I just burn off the calories in body heat.
I wont bore y’all with the details but there are certainly others out there with like stories. feel free to add a huge dollop of work ethic in the mix.
p.s. if you need any more proof of the above cause and effect, just ask my ice diving instructor who had never had a student in the -1 C water for about an hour in an ordinary neoprene wet suit.
privileged indeed.
Jeez, hard to believe I was born white and still had to work hard for everything I have. No affirmative action and no lowering the bar on any challenges. Failure was never a option and success was never offered without a lot of input on my part. When I moved into management and had to hire staff, I don’t remember white privilege ever playing a part in the process. Stupid came in all colors and competency was my only interest. Hired a native kid over several whites for a physical entry level position and he was one of the best workers I ever had. Gave him several raises over the course of a decade but he never had the brains to move much further up the ladder. Nothing to do with white privilege. Just not smart enough. With affirmative action he might have reached a level of higher incompetence in a government position but not private enterprise. My staff was mostly white (+2 Asians) but that’s because they were smart and competent. If I could have found someone with black privilege who was smarter I would have hired him/her. In closing, my white privilege finds this whole subject childish and rather stupid. Rex nails it in the simple sense that we all choose the level of participation we decide on as well as the ceiling our level of competence can reach. Some will always achieve more by studying harder, being smarter, having a stronger drive to succeed and working harder to achieve it. Skin color has nothing to do with anything except expectations of a easier ride if one doesn’t have the brains to compete on a level playing field. If white privilege means whites do better because they’re smarter then there’s nothing to apologize for because that’s genetics and not privilege. Show me one country where black leadership is a success story. I rest my case. White privilege is all inclusive from Einstein to Vancouver’s east side derelicts. It’s meaningless except for far left activists too dumb to understand that degrading one race of people does not elevate the standing of another race. As stated earlier, stupid comes in all colors.
I don’t know why these dysfunctional ideas appeal to any normal person… Re-living segregation of any type, or side, is not desirable or realistic.
I would ask academia where these dysfunctional people expect to fit in the society they are defining. They are not employable anywhere in America with such a radical racist POV. That crap ended in the mid 80’s and doors were/are closed for good reason…
I was pondering a post but I endorse the posts above (especially peter and Philip)….and can add no more.
The Deserota says “gracefully surrender the things of your youth” but talk is easy….I am proud to have righted a few wrongs along the way….but this time…
Every nation gets the government it deserves….
Just fading away here….like my country….
I’m sorta glad I have no progeny….to speak off….
Without criticizing in any way a truly great column, Mr. Murphy, who, like wine, is getting better and better with time, could also have twisted the knife in a couple of other ways, as well:
– The most privileged white people, of course, are the self-hating university faculty members who make this bilge up: it’s not simply the “university” (as “black box” — pardon the pun) that’s the only, or even primary, problem; it’s also the thousands of idiots in charge of the syllabus, the overwhelming portion of whom are white.
and
– The “check your privilege” nonsense is just another example of what happens when socialist lies (is there any other kind of socialist anything?) come home to roost. Having made unfulfillable promises about real or imagined “social problems” to the allegedly “downtrodden masses”, and massively intervened at great public expense in private everyday lives, to little or no discernible benefit, the fall-back of the socialist is always the same: tear down the other guy who always seems to do better, whether he’s a Jew, a “kulak” or a white, whatever’s to hand. “You can’t build one person up by knocking another person down” is self-evidently true to any normal-thinking person — and that says a lot about who we’re dealing with in this case.
All too true, David. Too much Platonism over the centuries and too many wannabe Philosopher Kings.
Would it be a “Micro aggression” to say I like Rex’s perspective – or is this just my white privilege reaching out subconsciously to damage the down trodden brown folk cultural Marxists must defend because they feel they are too wretched to defend or excel by themselves – they need a white pocket commie to get by.
Frankly I don’t give a sXXt what demented Marxists think – I just love it when they get up into your face with this accusatory slander – opportunity to install some well needed speed bumps in their mouth
Blackiesmatter the entire month of febury deem Black History month thats 28 days(29 ina leap year)to spread lies,lies and even more lies
I always counter “check your privilege” IMMEDIATELY with “check your self-victimization excuses”.
But it doesn’t matter; they’re entirely too stupid to know their condensed point in the form of a slogan has been utterly crushed.
Great article, often wonder how CBC tolerates Rex not towing the leftist agenda.
There was one strong message from Mr. Murphy that I thought was clear….SJW’s are racists.
I suggest we Conservatives use a very powerful propaganda tool the left has used against us with much success for years. From now on, at ANY opportunity I will ground leftards faces into the fact their “justice” heroes are nothing more than anti-Caucasian bigots and disgusting racists. As a matter of fact, their attitude of judging any and all whites just by the color of our skin is the very definition of racism.
Hear that clearly enough my leftist friends?
YOUR SJW HEROES ARE RACIST BIGOTS!!!!!!
Thanks for that, Rex, you nailed it.
And you always force me into the dictionary to ensure I understand what you are writing!
There is no such thing as “white” privilege. What there is, is “majority culture” privilege. Everything the SJW’s ascribe to white privilege is amply explained if you call it majority culture privilege instead. You think you have white privilege if you are born in Africa? Or are born white Catholic in the US in an area (quite large) where the majority culture is WASP? The phrase “white privilege” is simply a victimization phrase.
Being equal is not good enough anymore. We must be re-engineered to be re-equaled. That way we can use cool words like equity and egalitarian.
At taxpayer expense of course, with good jobs and perks for the enlightened
George Orwell — ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’
Rex,
Thank you for your common sense. A breath of fresh air in this world of stupid twits, or maybe that should be twats.